Our very own Danny Pinto was selected winner of the 2023 DEFA Film Library Graduate Student Essay Prize.
Text copied from the DEFA Instagram:
"Danny Pinto won this prize with his article-length essay, “’They Saw Their Guilt on Screen:’ Death Camp Sachsenhausen (1947) and the Plasticity of Authenticity.” Pinto’s essay explores questions of representation around the Holocaust and takes a deep dive into the evolving reception history of the East German Holocaust documentary Todeslager Sachsenhausen (1947) that was commissioned by the Soviet army in 1945.
The selection committee wrote: “Your fascinating study of the many incarnations of what was initially presented as a factual documentary opens our eyes to the lives of films in the real world. Just as interesting is the socially and historically situated reception of the film over time. We commend you on your research on this story and its presentation as a complex and thought-provoking whole.”
Danny Pinto is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. He began research on the film five years ago under the tutelage of Professor Thomas Y. Levin at Princeton University. He has visited many German archives and included his findings in his essay. Danny Pinto is also completing the English subtitles of the film, which he will screen on Oct. 20 [University of Chicago]"